Over the last couple of years it has been recognized that fossil fuel prices have been increasing. Not only have the prices increased, record breaking prices have been flagged and there are no signs of the prices to significantly reduce. As a result, transportation companies or companies that have fleet vehicles running on fossil fuel have been experiencing a dramatic increase in their spending for fuel. In consequence, these companies are trying to find ways of reducing their fuel consumption for making transportation more viable.
There are not only financial incentives for reducing fuel consumption but also environmental incentives. Transport companies with an environmental conscience are also willing to find ways for reducing carbon dioxide gas emissions produced by the burning of fossil fuel.
A recognized way of reducing fuel consumption is to turn off an engine when the vehicle is running on idle. However, manually turning off the engine requires a driver of the vehicle to be disciplined. Turning off the engine may seem cumbersome to a driver and the trouble of turning off the engine every time it is running on idle may seem as a futile effort to the driver. This is furthermore the case when the driver is employed by a company and is not required himself to pay for the fuel.
The companies absorbing fuel cost would however see a benefit if the drivers would cooperate in turning their vehicle engines off when running on idle.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,610,814, Sugioka et al. describe a control apparatus for automatically turning off an electric vehicle such as an electric motor bicycle. Several embodiments of the control apparatus are presented, all having in common the detection of the absence of a driver. More particularly, one embodiment presents a way off automatically turning off the electric motor when the absence of a driver is sensed for a certain period of time. Several sensors may be used for sensing the absence of the driver, according to an embodiment, a sensor is placed in a driver seat of the vehicle. According to another embodiment, a sensor is placed on a floor of the vehicle for sensing the absence of the driver.
In the case of fleet vehicles, the driver may still be present in the vehicle and yet the vehicle may be running on idle. Therefore a way to automatically turning off an engine of an idle vehicle when the driver is present would be beneficial, so as to reduce fuel consumption and environmental detriments while running on idle.